Two things fill my mind with ever increasing wonder

and awe…the starry skies above me and the moral law

within me.

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 1788

When the words of the law are clear and free from all
ambiguity, the letter of it is not to be disregarded under
the pretext of pursuing its spirit

Pennsylvania Statutory Construction Act

The values by which we are to survive are not rules for
just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper
illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good
and evil, means and ends, are seen in fearful sharpness
of outline.

Jacob Bronowski, British scientist, author(1908-74)

 AMORAL PHASE
 2 years old
 The child is totally self-centered

EGOCENTRIC STAGE
 2-7 years old

FOUR STAGES  Children are not particularly interested in or concerned with

OF MORAL rules
DEVELOPMENT
HETERONOMOUS STAGE
Jean Piaget,  7-12 years old
The Moral Development of
the Child, 1935  Morality of constraint

MORAL RELATIVISM
 Beyond 12
 Intentions are important; morality of cooperation is developed
 Perspective of punishment stage
 LEVEL 1: (2-7 YEARS OLD)
PRECONVENTIONAL MORALITY

REWARD AND PUNISHMENT

 Children have no real understanding of values and accept the

Theory of Moral Reasoning authority of others
 Issues of good and bad depend on physical consequences
Kohlberg

INDIVIDUALISM AND EXCHANGE

 Children begin to recognize that other individuals have their
own interest
 “I’ll scratch your back if your scratch mine.”
 LEVEL 2: (7-12 YEARS OLD)
CONVENTIONAL MORALITY

GOOD BOY/GOOD GIRL

 Child seeks to conform to the expected social conventions

Theory of Moral Reasoning
 One earns approval by being nice; adheres to Golden Rule

Kohlberg

LAW AND ORDER

 Focus becomes fixed on rules, social order and respect of
authority
 Right conduct consist of doing one’s duty
 LEVEL 3: (12 AND ABOVE)
POST CONVENTIONAL MORALITY

SOCIAL CONTRACT AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS

 The individual will explore the idea that the creation of the
Theory of Moral Reasoning good society requires a social contract into which people freely
enter to work for the benefit for all

Kohlberg

UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES
 Individual makes personal commitment to the universal
principles of equal rights, social justice and respect for the
basic dignity of all people
 HEINZ DILEMMA
 Female generally were found not to progress into the final
autonomous stage of value orientation but seemed arrested in
the second stage of the conventional level

CHALLENGES
to Kohlberg CAROL GILLIGAN
 A separate value development pathway for females that result in the
highest value – personal responsibility for females and legalistic
equality for males.
 Thinking vs Feeling
 Principle-based vs Relationship-based
You are what you are because
of where you were when.
Morris Massey
 1. TRADITIONALIST
 1930s and 1940s
 Tends toward patriotism, recognition on authority and
legitimate chain of command; materialistic view;
“establishment”
Generational  Believes a set of prescribed code of action that determine

Value Cohort how a person behave on a job, at home and socially.

Morris Massey 2. IN-BETWEENERS

 1940s and 1950s
 Recognizes and accepts regulations and makes
calculating assessments in regard to their personal needs
 Maintains individuality within structure; shift between
conformity and experimentation
 “How to be ___ books”
 3. CHALLENGERS

 1960s to 1970s
 Products of period of wealth and power
 Appears to take for granted and devalue the world of
abundance; programmed in a period of permissiveness
Generational  Challenge to authority and societal values, informal dress
Value Cohort and experimental lifestyles are all hallmarks of this cohort

Morris Massey 4. SYNTHESIZERS

 1980s and onward
 More conservative than challengers, yet more cynical and
skeptical than traditionalists and in bet-weeners
 They see both the problem and solution
 Ethical Relativism

A view that holds that there are no universal or

absolute principles that bind human beings, and
that the standards of right or wrong are always
relative to society and culture
 BABY BOOMERS

GENERATION X

OTHER VALUE
COHORTS MILLENIALS

GENERATION Z